After spending over 50 years on and around the water, I have realized that without strong fisheries laws and effective conservation measures, the future of salt water fishing, and America's living marine resources, is dim. Yet conservation is given short shrift by national angling organizations and the angling press. I hope that this blog will incite, inform and inspire salt water fishermen to reclaim their traditional role as the leading advocates for the conservation of America's fisheries.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

IGNORING THE IGNORANT

The Desiderata was written in 1927, but didn’t
become part of popular culture until 1971, when a reading of the prose poem was
recorded and widely played on Top 40 radio shows. One of its hints for living a well-lived life is to

“listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have
their story.”

But having been involved in fisheries management issues for
three decades and more, I’ll take issue with that sugestion. If we listened to the “dull and ignorant” comments
made on fisheries issues, we’d be in real trouble, and have little time
left for the truth.

I was reminded of that about a week ago.

A couple of times each month, I write something for the Marine Fish Conservation Network’s blog,
“From the Waterfront.” Last week, my
subject was lobsters, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s
complete failure to follow scientific advice, and the resultant collapse of the
southern New England lobster stock.

In the fisheries world, any mention of science will bring out
the ignorant. In droves.

“This tactic is typical for the extreme environmental
industry as a whole. NO COMPROMISE is
their mantra. They want draconian laws
and absolute power to inject policy over science. The [Magnuson Stevens Act] has extreme issues
with science requirements and it has become more and more obvious in recent
years. There is [sic] ZERO requirements
for the “Science” used in fishery management under the MSA to be 1) Reliable,
2) Current, 3) Complete 4) Actual Non Computer Modeled Data. I have sat thru many meeting with these paid
mobsters trying to shut down fisheries just because it “Feels right”, despite
science being proven wrong on the issue.
They also have managed to close healthy fisheries, despite known
problems with the data, and once closed and the faulty science exposed…its all
but impossible to reopen the fisheries under the current deficiencies in the
MSA. The MSA also ignores the life
cycles in of various fish stocks in favor of an unscientific rigid and
arbitrary rebuilding timeline. When
fishermen really concerned with the health of the stocks suggested making
reliable science based data a MANDATE in the MSA…it was these very same extreme
eNGOs that balked the loudest against such!... “

Apologies for the length of the quote, but I wanted to convey
its full flavor.

Now, to be fair, it’s not clear whether the writer was
merely dull and ignorant, a condition that can be cured, in large part, by an
extended exposure to knowledge, or whether he was instead dull and stupid,
which would suggest a more innate and chronic condition. But whichever it was, the passage was pretty
typical of the rants that flood fisheries managers’ offices every time
they try to do the right thing.

As the comment's writer got everything wrong, it might be
interesting to start at the top and take a good look at just how far
off-base and unreasonable opponents of Magnuson-Stevens can be.

Let’s start with his first premise, that conservationists
(typically described as “extreme environmentalists” or, in this case, “the
extreme environmental industry” for greater effect) are unwilling to compromise
on fisheries issues.

We’re talking about a collapsing lobster stock, and advice
from numerous scientists who all thought that something between a 50% reduction
in landings and a complete closure of the fishery was needed to provide any
chance that such stock might recover.

In such circumstances, what would a compromise look like?

Would it be a small reduction in
harvest, something like the 10% that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission ultimately imposed, an insignificant reduction that would still allow the stock to collapse,
but just do so more slowly? Or
perhaps an agreement to shut down the fishery, but only after the last lobster
was gone?

Then he tells us that the same conservationists seek the
“absolute power to insert policy over science.” In the context of lobster, that’s pretty ironic, since every bit of the science called for an
immediate reduction in harvest, but was trumped by a policy of keeping the
fishery open for socio-economic reasons.

But maybe that’s because the writer doesn’t really
understand what “science” is, or how it works.

“the ‘best scientific…data available,’ not the best scientific data possible.”

That’s a reasonable standard, for if completely current,
absolutely complete and error-free data, developed without the use of computer
models, was required before regulations could be adopted—which seems to be what
the comment’s writer is suggesting—no regulation would ever exist.

Which may be just what that writer intends.

For his objections only seem to apply to cases where
managers reduce the fishermen’s kill.
He talks about fisheries being “shut down…despite [the] science being
proven wrong,” and whines that “They also have managed to close healthy
fisheries, despite known problems with the data.”

But he never seems to
express a worry that fisheries may be opened, or harvest
increased, even if the best data available is neither current nor
complete, and may have been generated by computer models. “Bad science” is apparently
OK for that…

The same theme is repeated when he talks about “making
reliable science-based data a MANDATE in the MSA.”

Ignoring, for a minute, the fact that
National Standard 2, already a part of Magnuson-Stevens, effectively does just
that, I can only assume that he’s talking about the Fisheries
Science Improvement Act of 2011, a bill that, if it had passed, would have
made

“the catch limit mechanism for all fisheries inapplicable to
any stock of fish…for which a peer reviewed stock survey and stock assessment
have not been performed during the five-year period before enactment of [that
Act] and for which the Secretary [of Commerce] determines overfishing is not
occurring.

In other words, it would be OK for the Secretary of Commerce
to determine that a stock is not being overfished, based on an
old stock assessment, or to maintain a fishery for such stock even without an
annual catch limit. But if the National Marine
Fisheries Service established a catch limit based on older data, or found that
overfishing was occurring and restricted the harvest, well, then it was
asking for trouble…

Apparently, the comment’s writer would set an
impossibly high bar for managers attempting to conserve a species, but would
require no data at all to justify fishermen’s kills.

When you think about it, that’s both ignorant and dumb.

And that’s why, when it comes to fisheries matters, the Desiderata got it wrong. The stories of the dull and ignorant are not
worth hearing, although they are too often told.

Data provides the only story worth hearing, along with the scientists who urge greater precaution when that data is
slim.

For if we do that, yet err, the worst thing we’ll end up
with is more fish than we planned for.

But if we take the advice scribed in ignorant comments,
we could end up with no fish at all.